Department of Defense Cancels 'Talon' Citizen Protest Database Program

DOD 'Talon' Database Declawed

DOD 'Talon' Database Declawed
By Spencer Ackerman - August 21, 2007, 2:18 PM

The Quakers can sleep easier. This morning, the Pentagon http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=11251">announced that it's canceling a database created to monitor threats to Defense Department installations in the U.S. that ended up compiling lists of citizens engaged in peaceful, constitutionally-protected protest speech. For good measure, the Talon database was run by an intelligence office that doled out millions to crooked defense contractor MZM.

Talon, which compiled unverified threat information related to domestic Pentagon-run facilities, will go out of business on September 17. That's a long-planned obsolescence: in April, Defense intelligence chief http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/24/AR2007042402540.html">James Clapper stated that the Pentagon needed to "lay to rest the distrust and concern about the department's commitment to civil rights."

And for good reason. Internal DOD memoranda obtained and disclosed by the ACLU revealed that Talon had ensnared information on over 2,000 American citizens, some for posing http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002021.php">little more of a threat than "the possibility" of "some type of vandalism."

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